Trump Hates Shit, He Hates A Lot of Shit, But the Things He Hates The Most: LGBTQIA+ People

Echoes of history--this time the screams of our transgender ancestors

The Nazis didn't just hate gay and transgender people—they criminalized them through a complex web of laws and regulations designed to make their existence increasingly difficult and eventually impossible. Section 175 of the German criminal code was expanded under Nazi rule to criminalize any male homosexual contact, leading to thousands of arrests. Special police divisions were created specifically to target homosexuals. Medical classifications were changed to pathologize gender nonconformity.

Enter The Orange Shitler

The Trump administration's approach to LGBTQ+ rights follows this same bureaucratic assault with terrifying precision—starting in his first administration and then escalating since he got back into office. One of the first executive orders he signed this time, literally on his first day in office, declared that transgender people do not exist.

They’ve filed briefs arguing that Title VII didn't protect gay or transgender employees. They’ve removed healthcare protections and threatened to pull funding from hospitals that serve transgender Americans. They’ve changed rules about housing, education, adoption, and military service.

His first administration attempted to remove questions about sexual orientation and gender identity from the census. This time, they are “burning books” by purging mentions of LGBTQ+ Americans from all government websites and databases—yes, just like the Nazis burned books about us in the 1930s.

This systematic legal assault matters because it's exactly how the pathway to more extreme persecution is paved. The Nazis didn't start with concentration camps—they started with legal discrimination that made gay and transgender people increasingly vulnerable. They stripped away protections one by one, making it harder for their targets to work, to find housing, to access healthcare. They made their victims increasingly desperate and marginalized before moving on to more extreme measures.

The Trump administration is marching down that same path with a determination that should chill every American to the bone. Their lawfare against LGBTQ+ Americans isn’t just about "religious freedom" or "traditional values"—it’s about creating a framework for persecution, a legal structure that could be used to justify increasingly aggressive actions against a vulnerable minority.

The Transgender Witch Hunt: Echoes of Nazi "Cleansing"

Let's talk specifically about the Trump administration's obsession with erasing transgender Americans from public life. It's a fixation so intense and systematic that it can only be compared to the Nazi regime's determination to "cleanse" German society of "sexual deviancy."

The Department of Health and Human Services under Trump has worked to legally define gender as binary and immutable, determined only by genitalia at birth—a move designed to legally erase transgender people's existence. This mirrors how the Nazis destroyed research on gender variance and created strict legal definitions of sex that left no room for transgender identities. Both regimes used pseudoscience to justify their bigotry, ignoring actual medical consensus in favor of ideologically convenient lies.

Trump's first Department of Education revoked Obama-era guidance protecting transgender students, leaving vulnerable kids exposed to harassment and discrimination. This time, they’ve stepped it up and are threatening schools and teachers that show any measure of inclusivity toward LGBTQ+ students. The Nazis did the same thing, purging schools of any materials or teachers who acknowledged gender diversity. Both targeted children specifically because indoctrinating youth with cisgender heteronormative standards creates generational enforcement of bigotry.

The Justice Department under Trump reversed positions on transgender workplace protections, arguing that civil rights laws didn't cover gender identity. The Nazis similarly stripped employment protections from those they deemed "sexually deviant," forcing many into unemployment, poverty, and eventually the black markets and sex work that would then be used to further criminalize them. It's the same fucking playbook, executed with the same cruel efficiency.

Housing and Urban Development has removed protections for transgender people in homeless shelters. The Nazis used housing discrimination to push "undesirables" into ghettos where they could be more easily monitored and eventually rounded up. Both understood that controlling where people can live makes them easier to target.

And let's not forget the absolute shitshow of the transgender military ban—perhaps the most direct parallel to Nazi policies. The Nazis purged their military and civil service of gay and transgender individuals, claiming they undermined strength and morale. Trump’s first administration banned transgender troops using the exact same arguments, cloaked in the thinnest veneer of concern about "military readiness." This time, his executive order banning transgender troops says they are unfit for military service. Both relied on the lie that diversity weakens rather than strengthens.

The Familiar Stench of Fascism: Targeting LGBTQ+ Communities

Let's cut the motherfucking bullshit right away. When a president of the United States shares imagery that directly echoes Nazi concentration camp symbolism, we're not just witnessing a "political misstep" or "unfortunate coincidence." We're watching history repeat itself with a terrifying precision that should make every single one of us vomit until our throats burn raw.

Trump's recent sharing of an article featuring an upside-down pink triangle crossed out by a red "no" symbol isn't just offensive—it's a goddamn air raid siren screaming that democracy is being dragged into a dark alley and brutally assaulted while we watch from our windows.

For those who slept through history class or conveniently choose to forget, the upside-down pink triangle wasn't just some arbitrary design choice by the Third Reich. It was a fucking death sentence. A branding seared into flesh and consciousness. A methodical way to identify, isolate, and exterminate gay men in concentration camps where their bodies would be worked to skeletal husks before being tossed into pits like discarded garbage.

Approximately 15,000 gay men (some were actually trans women who were force detransitioned, just like what the state of Florida has been doing in prisons) were sent to these hellholes where the stench of burning flesh and decaying hope permeated every corner, and a staggering 60% of them were murdered—their screams silenced by a regime that saw them as disease incarnate. This wasn't casual discrimination—it was systematic annihilation executed with German efficiency and cold-blooded precision.

And the Nazis didn't stop there. They burned the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, destroying the world's first transgender research facility and setting back transgender healthcare by decades. They obliterated Magnus Hirschfeld's pioneering work on gender variance and sexuality.

Transgender people were thrown into the same camps, subjected to the same torture, their identities erased from history with such thoroughness that we're still uncovering the extent of their persecution. The Nazis weren't just homophobes—they were determined to eradicate any form of gender or sexual expression that didn't fit their rigid, heteronormative vision of Aryan purity.

And here we fucking are, watching the president of the United States casually toss this symbol around on social media like it's just another goddamn meme for his mouth-breathing followers to repost. This should make your blood boil.

Symbolic Warfare: The Deliberate Assault on LGBTQ+ Existence

When confronted about this grotesque display, the response from Trump's camp was pathetically predictable and reeking of bullshit. A White House spokesperson deflected by highlighting Trump's supposed support for the Jewish community—a claim so fucking hollow you could use it as a goddamn echo chamber. Classic Trump playbook: dodge, deflect, and distract like a magician pulling a blood-soaked rabbit from a hat while asking you to watch his other hand.

The spokesperson couldn't even directly address the symbol because there's no defending it without revealing the rotting corpse of fascism underneath their red ties and American flag pins. There's no universe, no parallel dimension, no alternate reality where sharing Nazi concentration camp imagery gets a pass—unless you've already surrendered your moral compass to the shitshow that is Trumpism.

What makes this incident particularly vile is the context. The article Trump shared from The Washington Times argued that the military had shifted away from LGBTQ+ pride in recruitment ads. The message is crystal clear: Trump's vision of America has no room for LGBTQ+ individuals—especially not in positions of power or protection. The use of the crossed-out pink triangle isn't subtle. It's a declaration of war against a community that has already endured centuries of persecution.

And this isn't a fucking isolated incident. Trump’s first administration was a four-year assault on LGBTQ+ rights that reads like a goddamn checklist of persecution. This time, he’s doubling-down on his previous policies and then pushing more and worse.

Remember how he banned transgender people from serving in the military with a series of impulsive tweets? How his administration argued in court that employers should be able to fire people for being gay or transgender? How they stripped healthcare protections from transgender patients? How they fought to allow discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in housing, education, and adoption services?

All of that is back—and worse.

Every single one of these policies mirrors the Nazi approach of first excluding, then demonizing, and finally attempting to erase LGBTQ+ people from public life. Before the death camps, the Nazis made it impossible for gay and transgender people to work, to receive medical care, to find housing. They banned them from public service. They criminalized their existence. They shut down gay bars and community spaces. They created a bureaucratic nightmare that sounds terrifyingly similar to Trump's methodical dismantling of LGBTQ+ protections.

The LGBTQ+ Jewish organization Keshet expressed "horror" at Trump's post. Horror. Not concern. Not disappointment. Horror. Because they, perhaps better than most, understand the deadly serious implications of such symbolism. When you've got skin in the game on both sides of historical genocide, you recognize the warning signs with a clarity that others might miss or willfully ignore.

The Blueprint of Oppression: Then and Now

To understand why Trump's actions are so deeply disturbing, we need to examine the parallels between Nazi Germany's rise to power and Trump's political playbook. It's not about equating everything Trump does with Hitler—that would be intellectually lazy and historically inaccurate.

This about recognizing dangerous patterns before they escalate beyond our control and we find ourselves neck-deep in the same shit-filled cesspool that drowned German democracy. It's about seeing the disease before it metastasizes into a cancer that devours every healthy cell of our republic, leaving behind a corpse wrapped in red, white, and blue.

Nazi Germany didn't begin with gas chambers. It began with symbols, rhetoric, and the systematic othering of vulnerable groups. It began with propaganda that painted certain communities as threats to German prosperity and identity. It began with small, incremental steps toward fascism that, viewed individually, could be dismissed or rationalized away. But when viewed collectively, formed a clear path toward authoritarianism.

Trump's ordered elimination of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across federal agencies follows this playbook with frightening precision. With Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth enforcing these directives at the Department of Defense, we're witnessing the methodical purging of inclusive policies in one of our nation's most powerful institutions. This isn't just a policy disagreement; it's the systematic dismantling of protections for marginalized communities.

Think about the psychology at play here. When you remove diversity initiatives from government, you're sending a clear message about whose lives and experiences are valued and whose are dispensable. You're creating a hierarchy of humanity—sound familiar? That's exactly what the Nazis did, categorizing humans into "desirable" and "undesirable" groups, with the latter marked for exclusion or elimination.

The Weaponization of Military Identity Against LGBTQ+ Service Members

The Washington Times article that Trump shared, titled "Army recruitment ads look quite different under Trump," reveals another disturbing parallel. The Nazis transformed the German military into an extension of their ideological agenda, purging those deemed "undesirable" and reinforcing an ideal of the Aryan soldier. Trump's apparent satisfaction with removing LGBTQ+ representation from military recruitment materials mirrors this strategy.

This shit isn't happening in a vacuum or just behind closed doors—it's happening in the full fucking daylight of American politics while half the country applauds like it's a goddamn Super Bowl touchdown. Trump isn’t just purging transgender Americans from military service and calling it a day. Cadet Bonespurs—himself a pathetic fucking coward—dehumanizes transgender Americans in the executive order: “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”

This is the same fucked-up logic that led to countless military purges throughout history, including in Nazi Germany, where they stripped medals from decorated Jewish officers before shipping them off to die in the same camps they once helped liberate from foreign enemies. It's the twisted, putrid thinking that says uniformity equals strength while diversity is weakness—a steaming pile of dogshit ideology that's been disproven on every battlefield where Americans of all backgrounds have fought and died together.

Nazis understood that controlling who can represent the nation in uniform controls the national image of strength and valor. By erasing LGBTQ+ people from the military, Trump is sending the message that they don't belong in America's vision of itself.

And when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth began enforcing Trump's anti-diversity directives at the Department of Defense, he might as well have been channeling Heinrich Himmler, who similarly purged the German military of "undesirables." Both men operated under the delusion that homogeneity breeds strength, when history has repeatedly proven the opposite. Both used their authority to enforce ideological purity in institutions meant to protect their respective nations, not serve as breeding grounds for fascist ideology.

The military under fascist regimes isn't just a defense force; it's a symbol of national identity. By controlling who can represent that identity, authoritarian leaders reinforce their vision of who belongs in the national community and who doesn't. When Trump shares content celebrating the exclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals from military representation, he's engaging in the same kind of symbolic warfare that precedes more tangible forms of discrimination.

And let's be brutally honest here: this isn't about military readiness or effectiveness. It's about appeasing a base that's uncomfortable with the reality of a diverse America. It's about creating an enemy—a scapegoat—to rally against. The Nazis had Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and the disabled. Trump has immigrants, transgender individuals, and the broader LGBTQ+ community. Different targets, same strategy.

The Gradual Normalization of Anti-LGBTQ+ Extremism

One of the most insidious aspects of fascism's rise—both in 1930s Germany and in contemporary America—is the gradual normalization of extremist views. Ideas and symbols that would have been universally condemned a decade ago are now debated as if they're just another policy position. This normalization doesn't happen overnight; it's a slow, creeping process that desensitizes us to increasingly extreme rhetoric and actions.

When Trump first entered the political scene, his comments about Mexican immigrants being "rapists" and his call for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" were widely condemned as beyond the pale. Fast forward to today, and sharing Nazi concentration camp symbols barely registers a blip in the news cycle.

The Overton window—the range of ideas deemed acceptable in public discourse—has shifted so dramatically that we're now debating whether Nazi symbolism is really that bad.

And nowhere is this normalization more evident than in the rapid acceleration of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. Calling transgender women "men in dresses" has become commonplace. Accusing LGBTQ+ people of "grooming" children—a rhetoric that directly echoes Nazi propaganda about homosexuals—is now mainstream conservative discourse. Arguments that being transgender is a "mental illness" or a "trend" mirror precisely the Nazi framing of homosexuality and gender nonconformity as "degeneracy" and "social contagion."

This is exactly how it happened in Germany. Before the Nazis could physically persecute LGBTQ+ people, they had to make hating them socially acceptable. They had to normalize the idea that gay and transgender people were threats to children, to family values, to national security. Sound familiar? It's the exact same bullshit flooding right-wing media today, repeated so often that moderates and liberals are getting on board. Gavin Newsome, Governor of California and a supposed champion for LGBTQ+ rights, told right wing extremist Charlie Kirk that his views toward transgender Americans are similar.

This is exactly how it happened in Germany. Views that were once considered extreme gradually became mainstream through constant repetition and escalation. The Jewish community wasn't sent to death camps overnight; they were systematically dehumanized through years of propaganda and increasingly restrictive policies. By the time the Final Solution was implemented, much of German society had been conditioned to view Jews as less than human.

We're witnessing this same pattern with Trump and his treatment of vulnerable communities. Each outrageous statement or action that goes unpunished pushes the boundaries a little further. Each time we fail to hold him accountable, we normalize behavior that should never be acceptable in a democratic society. And with each shift in what's considered "normal," we move one step closer to the authoritarianism that defined Nazi Germany.

The Complicity of Silence

Perhaps the most damning parallel between Nazi Germany and Trump's America is the complicity of those who remain silent. History doesn't look kindly on the German citizens who turned a blind eye to the atrocities happening around them, and it won't look kindly on Americans who do the same.

When Trump shares Nazi symbolism and Republican leadership says nothing, they're complicit. When media outlets treat this as just another day in politics, they're complicit. When Democratic leaders say it’s not good politics to defend people’s rights, they’re complicit. When ordinary citizens shrug it off as "Trump being Trump," they're complicit. Silence in the face of fascism isn't neutrality; it's permission.

In Nazi Germany, many people convinced themselves that they were just "staying out of politics" or that the regime's actions didn't affect them personally. They told themselves that things weren't really that bad or that the more extreme rhetoric was just for show. They rationalized their inaction until it was too late to act at all.

Sound familiar? How many times have we heard people dismiss Trump's most egregious behavior as "just talk" or "political theater"? How many times have we been told to "calm down" or that we're "overreacting" by smug assholes who think they're too smart to fall for fascism?

The Digital Brown Shirts

When Hitler rose to power, he had the Brown Shirts—the Sturmabteilung (SA)—who served as his paramilitary force. They intimidated opponents, disrupted rival political meetings, and created an atmosphere of fear and compliance. Today, Trump has something potentially more powerful: digital armies of supporters who amplify his message, attack his critics, and create their own atmosphere of intimidation.

Social media has become the modern battlefield for political warfare, and Trump has masterfully weaponized platforms like Twitter (now X) and Truth Social to spread his ideological agenda. When he shares content featuring Nazi symbolism—and this isn’t the first fucking time—it doesn't just stay on his feed, it gets amplified across the internet by thousands of accounts who see nothing wrong with it or worse, actively celebrate it.

This digital Brown Shirt phenomenon creates a feedback loop of extremism. Trump posts something outrageous, his supporters defend and amplify it, mainstream conservatives feel pressure to accept it, and the boundaries of acceptable discourse shift once again. It's a mechanism for radicalizing ordinary people and normalizing views that would have been unthinkable just years ago.

The Nazis understood the power of propaganda and used every available technology—radio, film, print media—to spread their message. Trump understands the power of social media and uses it with similar effectiveness. Both recognized that controlling the narrative is key to controlling the population. Both realized that repeat a lie often enough, and it begins to sound like truth.

The Vulnerability of Democracy

Both Nazi Germany and Trump's America demonstrate a crucial truth: democracy is fragile. It relies on shared values, norms, and institutions that can be eroded from within. The Weimar Republic had a constitution, democratic elections, and supposed safeguards against tyranny. None of that stopped Hitler from rising to power legally and then dismantling the very democratic system that allowed his ascent.

Trump has shown similar contempt for democratic norms and institutions. From pressuring election officials to "find" votes to inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, his actions reveal a willingness to sacrifice democracy on the altar of personal power. His sharing of Nazi symbolism is just another data point in a pattern of authoritarian behavior that threatens the very foundation of American democracy.

What makes this particularly dangerous is that democracies rarely die dramatically. They don't typically end with military coups or violent revolutions. Instead, as scholars Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt argue in their book "How Democracies Die," they erode gradually through seemingly legal actions taken by elected leaders. By the time society realizes what's happening, it's often too late to reverse course.

The Path Forward: Learning from History's Darkest Chapters to Protect LGBTQ+ Americans

So where the fuck do we go from here? How do we prevent the echoes of Nazi Germany from becoming a deafening chorus in contemporary America that drowns out every last note of liberty and justice? How do we stop the bleeding before the patient flatlines and we're left performing CPR on the cold corpse of democracy?

The answer lies in learning from history's bloody lessons and refusing to repeat its mistakes with the stubbornness of someone who's seen this horror movie before and isn't about to walk into the same dark basement where everyone gets slaughtered.

First, we must name what we're seeing. When a former president shares Nazi concentration camp symbolism, we can't mince words or hide behind euphemisms. We need to call it what it is: an embrace of fascist imagery with a clear target—LGBTQ+ Americans.

When politicians talk about "protecting children" from drag queens or transgender healthcare, we need to call it what it is: the same dehumanizing rhetoric the Nazis used to justify persecution. Language matters, and diluting the severity of such actions only serves to normalize them.

Second, we must protect transgender youth (and adults) with the ferocity of people who understand they are the canaries in the coal mine. The Nazis targeted vulnerable populations first—those with the least political power and societal protection. In America today, that's transgender kids, who are being used as political punching bags across the country.

If we fail to draw the line here, we're signaling that we'll accept escalating persecution.

Second, we must hold our institutions accountable. When the White House spokesperson deflected questions about Trump's use of Nazi symbolism, journalists should have pressed harder. When Republican leadership remains silent, they should be questioned relentlessly about their complicity. Institutions only work when we demand that they fulfill their purpose.

Third, we must recognize that defeating fascism requires coalition-building. In Nazi Germany, various targeted groups often failed to unite against their common oppressor until it was too late. In America today, we cannot afford the luxury of focusing only on our own communities' concerns. An attack on LGBTQ+ Americans is an attack on democracy itself, and it demands a unified response. Jews, Muslims, immigrants, people of color, women, disabled Americans—all must recognize that the same forces coming for transgender people today will come for them tomorrow. The Nazis didn't stop with homosexuals, and American fascists won't stop with transgender youth.

Fourth, we must challenge the pseudoscience being used to justify anti-transgender policies. The Nazis burned research and replaced it with ideologically convenient lies about sexuality and gender. Today's right wing is doing the same thing, ignoring the consensus of every major medical association to push dangerous misinformation about transgender healthcare. We must insist on evidence-based policy and call out junk science for what it is: a modern version of Nazi "racial hygiene" theories.

Fifth, we must vote like our democracy depends on it—because it fucking does. We need to be willing to drag ourselves to the polls, even if we have to crawl over broken glass to get there. Apathy and disengagement are luxuries for privileged assholes who think they'll be spared when the shit hits the fan. They're the indulgence of people who don't understand that when fascism takes root, it eventually comes for everyone who isn't deemed "pure" enough. We cannot afford such delusions when the stakes are this goddamn high and the alternative is watching America turn into a festering wound on the world stage.

Conclusion: The Choice Before Us

History doesn't repeat itself exactly, but it does rhyme. The patterns of fascism's rise in Nazi Germany are echoing through Trump's actions with a clarity that should alarm anyone paying attention. From the weaponization of symbols to the targeting of vulnerable communities, from the erosion of democratic norms to the complicity of those who remain silent—the parallels are too striking to ignore.

When Trump shares imagery featuring the crossed-out pink triangle—a symbol used to mark LGBTQ+ people for death in Nazi concentration camps—he's not just making a political statement. He's aligning himself with one of history's most brutal regimes and signaling his vision for America's future. A vision where LGBTQ+ people are marked as undesirable, where transgender Americans are erased from public life, where diversity is purged from our institutions, and where the lessons of history are forgotten or deliberately ignored.

Trump's systematic assault on LGBTQ+ rights—particularly transgender Americans—follows the Nazi trajectory with terrifying precision. From banning transgender troops to stripping healthcare protections, from arguing for employment discrimination to removing educational safeguards, he is methodically dismantling decades of progress. And now, by sharing Nazi symbolism, he's signaling his intent to continue and escalate this persecution if given the chance.

We stand at a crossroads similar to the one faced by Germans in the early 1930s. We can recognize the warning signs and take action, or we can convince ourselves that it's not really that bad—that we're overreacting, that our democracy is too strong to fall. The citizens of the Weimar Republic made the wrong choice, and millions paid for it with their lives.

The pink triangle once marked people for death. Later, it was reclaimed as a symbol of resilience and pride. Today, it stands as a warning—a reminder that the path from rhetoric to genocide is shorter than we'd like to believe, and that the first targets of fascism are rarely the last. When a president shares that symbol crossed out, he's telling us exactly who he is and what he intends. The only question is whether we'll listen before it's too late.

What choice will we make?